


Punctuated Equilibrium

by Temaris



Category: Primeval
Genre: Angst, Deathfic, Funerals, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-16
Updated: 2008-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-19 09:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temaris/pseuds/Temaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor's world fits as badly as his new suit, and for much the same reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punctuated Equilibrium

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tenpa-neko](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tenpa-neko).



> **Prompt(s)** : I kind of mixed and matched: _\- The whole idea of guilt and how much Tom's death affected Connor in Season 1 Episode 4;_ with _Connor talking to Cutter_ , and came up with something really very mild.  
>  **Notes** : Written for the [](http://primevalathon.livejournal.com/profile)[ **primevalathon**](http://primevalathon.livejournal.com/)  autumn challenge.  
> 
> 
> * * *

Connor breathed in slowly, carefully not looking as the pallbearers walked in. His hands were sweating and he blindly stared down for a moment before realising he was crushing his hat, hot and crumpled in his fists. He unclenched his hands, eyes down as the pallbearers walked past, their pace slow and measured. Something caught his eye despite his best intentions, and he was looking past their straight, crow-black backs at the soft sheen of the coffin.

The last time he'd seen Tom, they'd been pulling a sheet over his face. ( _One, two, three_ , and they'd hoisted the gurney up, trundling him out of the stadium to the ambulance.)

The last time he'd touched him, he'd not really touched him at all, half afraid that they'd still have to shoot, that the parasite would make Tom attack him. He'd let Tom slide down, fall away, crumpled and small and alone on the grass, and he'd walked away. Tom had still been warm, and Connor had wondered, still wondered: was there something else he could have done? He thought that perhaps he would forever be trapped in that moment.

The pallbearers lowered the coffin carefully to a pair of trestles. They paused, ducked their heads, and Connor wondered if they really cared, if the mortality they saw every day still reached them. If he did this every day, would he still care?

The others were all there. Duncan was standing across the way, for once looking neat. Neat and broken. Connor watched him for a while, but Duncan didn't look back. The LARPers: funeral clothes cobbled together from black jeans and t-shirts, elderly black jackets and wraps keeping off the cold. Some of the people from the department too. Professor Jamieson looked confused. He'd liked Tom, called him carrots and made Pratchett jokes, and Tom always laughed like he thought they were funny.

Tom had hated people calling him carrots. Or ginger nut. Or ginger spice. That had always been good for all out cushion war.

A couple of guys from the film soc too; and some of the tin hat brigade. Connor tried to ignore them. They'd stared at him until Nick had leaned forward and cut off their line of sight.

Everyone sat. Stephen was to his left, looking strange in a suit. It hung on him as though neither of them were quite sure this was the effect they were going for. Abby appreciated it though. He could just see one small hand gripping Stephen's arm. If he looked.

Nick was on his other side; perfectly comfortable in his black suit and neatly knotted tie. The Professor carried off wearing a suit a damn sight better than Connor did. Better even than Stephen, to be honest, but where Professor Cutter looked smart, solemn -- distinguished even, Connor just looked rumpled. He contemplated Nick's suit for a long moment, it really was -- Connor yanked himself back, stopping the thought before he could even think about thinking it. Not at a _funeral_.

It didn't help that Connor had had to buy his suit in a hurry, and when you're just a student even if you're running around after dinosaurs and the Home Office on a secret conspiracy, you took what you could get. He'd been in and out of six different charity shops before going back to the first one and getting the black suit he'd found there. Tom would've laughed himself sick at the thought of him, Con Temple, in a suit.

He didn't look up as the vicar began to speak. He picked up the order of service instead, and studied it carefully. He remembered the hymns from infant school. _He who would valiant --_

Nick leaned in a little. "Connor?"

He blinked, hard.

"I'm fine," he mumbled. If Lester had been here he'd have been rolling his eyes. Lester hadn't wanted the team to go, even. Too much sentimentality and not enough thought for the consequences of acknowledging a link between the work the team was doing and Tom's death, he'd said. Nick had listened, nodded, and told him what time the service started, if he cared to come along. Sir James Lester wouldn't be there -- wasn't there. But Connor had been proud of Nick, touched by the thought, even though he couldn't imagine Lester among Tom's friends and family. He even forgot for a minute or two why Nick and Lester had been arguing.

Everybody sang. The congregation followed two beats behind the organ, and uncertain even so of the notes. _The Lord's my Shepherd'_ , my arse, he thought, and added a hasty, _Sorry_ , just in case.

A hand on his elbow was pushing him up, standing, turning, following the pallbearers again -- when had they come back?

He'd spent the most part of the service thinking about anything except Tom. Stupid, conspiracy-mad, dead Tom. Tom whose eyes had flared like a Goa'uld, who'd bitten a lab tech who was still being treated with high octane anti-parasitics, who'd died because Connor -- because Connor--

"Come on, lad," someone murmured, and he was being guided into a car; he was vaguely aware of a conversation above his head. Abby ducked into the car and hugged him. "I'll see you later, all right?"

He nodded.

They drove. Nick didn't talk at all, which was something of a relief. Connor wasn't entirely sure he could think of anything to say.

After a while he stopped staring out of the window and actually looked. "Where are we going?"

"My place."

"Oh. Why?"

"Because we agreed you'd be better off with someone around, and Abby has to go into the zoo later today."

"Oh. Yeah. She said something about that." She had, and he'd been looking forward to being on his own. In the ten days since Tom died he'd not really had a moment to himself. Oh. "I'd be okay on my own -- you can just drop me off at Abby's place, I don't--"

"Don't be absurd. We're nearly here now."

"No, really, look, you can just--" He was starting to panic a little now. The last thing he needed was to have a second breakdown in front of Professor Cutter. He'd been looking forward to doing that on his own. Maybe scream and yell a bit, maybe play Halo. Get it out of his system. Not make a fool of himself. He just needed a couple of days -- hours, anything really -- on his _own_. Then he could get his head on straight, and he'd be able to deal with everything else. The last thing he needed was the Professor being kind, again. It had been so easy to lean into him and just hold on: be held on to.

The lump in his throat thickened. Just what he needed, have the Professor think he was even more of an idiot than usual. He just couldn't catch a single solitary break, could he? Was it too much to ask to have him look for once, just _once_ , like a sane, intelligent, worthwhile human being?

Nick turned the car into a driveway and came to a stop. "Here we are." He got out of the car, and came around, pulled the passenger side door open and leaned down. "Come on, Connor, let's get you indoors. It's looking like rain."

"Wouldn't that just be perfect," Connor blurted, and bit his lip.

Nick just looked a little wry, and a little solemn. "Scotland's the place for the dismals if you want. The Highlands are a much better bet for a really good soaking. Come on, I want to get out of this suit, and get a cup of tea."

"Right. Right you are, Professor."

He'd barely slammed the car door shut when the thing bleeped locked, and Cutter was ushering him into the house. He had an impression of browns and clutter, and then they were in the kitchen, and Cutter was telling him to just put his coat on the chair, and was tea okay or did he want coffee?

It was so bizarre, so utterly out of all realm of probability, that Connor shook his head.

"Something stronger? I don't know that I'd recommend it."

Connor blinked. "Oh, no. No, I meant, tea would be fine, Professor."

"Call me Nick. We're not in the department now."

"Right. Nick." He smiled awkwardly. Somehow, even though he'd been hankering after this -- the invitation to call him by his name, going past 'professor and student' -- it didn't fit well, not now. Didn't seem right, somehow. He worried at his lip anxiously. Weird. Here he was, in Nick's home, and all he could think was how you really had to be careful what you wished for. He looked around hoping for some conversational gambit to present itself, but the kettle was boiling and then there was a mug of tea in his hands, and three sugars, please, and the Professor -- Nick's eyebrows raised. "I'm a growing boy," he said and took a too hasty sip.

"Have a seat, Connor."

Connor sat obediently, clutching his mug.

"Don't look so worried. I meant what I said, back --" he stumbled a little. Connor nodded. He knew what Nick meant. Back at the only part that had been any good at all, standing on the pitch, half a dozen SAS holding their guns on his dead friend -- he's _dead_ , can't you see, it can't hurt anyone now, leave him be! -- and Nick's arms securely around him ( _C'mere_ ), telling him what he needed to know, telling him kind lies, promising him he was needed.

He wouldn't leave if Nick needed him.

He wondered if Nick knew that.

"You were right, you know?" he said abruptly, turning the hot mug round and round. It hadn't all been lies. Not all of it. Maybe not any of it. "He'd've loved the whole thing. I -- I wish we'd, I wish he could have known. He'd, he'd've --"

"He'd've have driven Lester battier than you do," Nick said, a smile in his voice. When Connor looked at him he was looking at Connor, and Connor offered a small smile back.

"I bet he would." Connor nodded. He gulped at his tea. It was so stupid -- so _stupid_.

"You did everything you could--"

"If I hadn't told them about the dinosaurs, they'd never have tried."

"Maybe. Maybe they'd have gone chasing anomalies even if they'd never known you and ended up in the ancient past. How do you think Duncan and Tom would have dealt with that?"

Connor laughed; it cracked in the middle, but it really was kind of a funny thought, the two dorkiest people he knew running around in the Jurassic. "He'd've been terrible at it. He wouldn't have believed it, and he'd've got stuck, or eaten by something. He was always sticking his hand in things because the label told you not to."

"Well then."

Connor shook his head. "He was a daftie, a complete daftie, what was he _thinking_ \--"

"He was your friend. You miss him. Connor... it's okay, oh, come on now--" The tea was plucked out of his hands and he was hauled up onto his feet, and he buried his face in the crook of the Professor -- _Nick_ 's -- neck, and cried.

A long, long time later, he woke up on a leather sofa, warm and hollow. A blanket was responsible for the warmth; or maybe it was the hand gently rubbing his back. Or the faint memory of the touch of soft lips against his forehead, and a kind voice telling him to sleep, he'd be fine.

He blinked, then rubbed at his eyes. They were full of sand, and his head hurt, and he realised with a rush that he'd blubbed all over his favourite professor, then fallen asleep on him.

The blush that spread over his face could have set fire to the sofa.

"You'll want some water down you." Nick reappeared, holding out a glass. Connor awkwardly hauled himself up far enough to drink and not spill the water.

"I'm really, really sorry, about--" He waved a hand helplessly.

Nick grinned at him. "Feeling better?"

"Can you die from embarrassment?"

"I don't think so, no."

"You sure about that?"

"Pretty sure, yes," Nick sat down next to him on the sofa, and looked seriously at him. "I meant what I said, and I'll be saying it as often as needs be to get it through your thick head. We need you on this, Connor."

"Yeah?"

"It wouldn't be the same without you."

Connor couldn't help but smile a little, despite everything, and Nick smiled back at him. For a moment he rested his hand on Connor's shoulder, then brushed a strand of Connor's hair back from where it had fallen into his face. "Get some rest, Con," he said gently.

Connor closed his eyes, warmed by Nick sitting so close, and slid wordlessly back down into sleep, dreamless and safe.


End file.
